"The Blue Book says we've got to go out and it doesn't say a damn thing about having to come back." --Captain Patrick Etheridge, USLSS

A compilation of U.S. Life-Saving Service reports, newspaper articles, publications and more related to shipwrecks of the N.C. coast. Does not include ships that were hauled off or otherwise saved.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Schooner George W. Truitt Jr. ~ 20 February 1928

On February 23 The Beaufort News reported a vessel lost near Ocracoke. It proved to be the 700-ton four-masted schooner George W. Truitt, Jr. under the command of Captain E.G. Bennett, she was en route to New York City from New River, SC with 645,000 feet of lumber.A very strong gale from the southwest was blowing at 40 mph that day, causing the G.W. Truitt Jr. to drift onto a sand bar close to shore. All persons on board were rescued by using the breeches buoy, as performed by the Coast Guardsmen of the Ocracoke, Hatters Inlet and Creed's Hill Stations. The Beaufort reporter could not get in touch with the Ocracoke Station and was furnished a wreck report by Captain H.D. Goodwin of the Fort Macon Station, "... vessel went ashore Monday in a 40 mile an hour gale from the southwest." The Ocracoke Station was the first to observe the vessel in distress. According to Captain Goodwin, "They were saved by the heroic efforts of the coast guardsmen from the Ocracoke, Hatteras Inlet and Creed's Hill stations of the U.S. Coast Guard. The crewmen who were brought ashore in the breeches buoy were: Captain Bennet; W.D. Bennett, mate; George W. Brown, cook; George Liryel, E. Baustod, E.D. Olsen and T. Neilson, seamen.

GREATOAKSGROW@GMAIL.COM

Judi Heit is a history buff who has been researching shipwrecks off the North Carolina coast since 2010, when Hammond Innes book "Wreck of the Mary Deare" captured her imagination. The Heits live in Oriental, NC ... a fishing village that takes its name from the Steamer Oriental, wrecked off their coast in May 1862.

The shipwrecks listed on this blog are archived as follows. Ship names starting with: